Differences in given feedback in different clinical settings

Background: Receiving feedback is considered widely
important, especially in clinical situations, when
students interact with real-life patients for the first
time. Since July 2011 the VUB (Brussels, Belgium) uses
BruCe, an enquiry with which Master students in
Medicine score the quality of several aspects of their
internships. Three questions are specifically concerned
with the evaluation of received feedback during the
internship.

Summary of Work: Since July 2011 204 students
completed an evaluation in BruCe, after each
internship, for a total of 2167 enquiries.

Summary of Results: The average scores concerning
feedback range from 3.30 to 3.74 on a scale of 5
(compared to a medium score of 4.08 for all
questions). A differentiated view can however be
noticed in different clinical settings (academic
hospitals, peripheral hospitals, GPs). For GP
internships (191 enquiries) scores range from 4.23 to
4.47. For the academic hospitals in Brussels, including
the academic hospital affiliated with the VUB (1421
enquiries), the scores range from 2.97 to 3.55.
Peripheral hospitals' (555 enquiries) scores range from
3.77 to 4.05. Possible explanations may be the number
of students allocated to a single clinical supervisor or a
greater proportion of insufficiently trained clinical
teachers in academic hospitals, whereas students in a
GP internship are in a one-on-one situation which may
facilitate feedback.

Discussion and Conclusions: Although academic
hospitals are considered teaching hospitals, giving
feedback seems to be a weakness. This emphasizes
the need for teach-the-teacher programs.

Take-home messages: Differences exist in the
quantity and quality of feedback given to students in
different clinical settings.